ared in the defeat of
Evesham, which he did not long survive. Humphrey V. was, therefore,
naturally selected as one of the twelve arbitrators to draw up the ban
of Kenilworth (1266), by which the disinherited rebels were allowed to
make their peace. Dying in 1275, he was succeeded by his grandson
Humphrey VII. This Bohun lives in history as one of the recalcitrant
barons of the year 1297, who extorted from Edward I. the _Confirmatio
Cartarum_. The motives of the earl's defiance were not altogether
disinterested. He had suffered twice from the chicanery of Edward's
lawyers; in 1284 when a dispute between himself and the royal favourite,
John Giffard, was decided in the latter's favour; and again in 1292 when
he was punished with temporary imprisonment and sequestration for a
technical, and apparently unwitting, contempt of the king's court. In
company, therefore, with the earl of Norfolk he refused to render
foreign service in Gascony, on the plea that they were only bound to
serve with the king, who was himself bound for Flanders. Their attitude
brought to a head the general discontent which Edward had excited by his
arbitrary taxation; and Edward was obliged to make a surrender on all
the subjects of complaint. At Falkirk (1298) Humphrey VII. redeemed his
character for loyalty. His son, Humphrey VIII., who succeeded him in the
same year, was allowed to marry one of the king's daughters, Eleanor,
the widowed countess of Holland (1302). This close connexion with the
royal house did not prevent him, as it did not prevent Earl Thomas of
Lancaster, from joining the opposition to the feeble Edward II. In 1310
Humphrey VIII. figured among the Lords Ordainers; though, with more
patriotism than some of his fellow-commissioners, he afterwards followed
the king to Bannockburn. He was taken captive in the battle, but
exchanged for the wife of Robert Bruce. Subsequently he returned to the
cause of his order, and fell on the side of Earl Thomas at the field of
Boroughbridge (1322). With him, as with his father, the politics of the
Marches had been the main consideration; his final change of side was
due to jealousy of the younger Despenser, whose lordship of Glamorgan
was too great for the comfort of the Bohuns in Brecon. With the death of
Humphrey VIII. the fortunes of the family enter on a more peaceful
stage. Earl John (d. 1335) was inconspicuous; Humphrey IX. (d. 1361)
merely distinguished himself as a captain in the Breton campai